Title: In Pursuit of Practical Wisdom
Subtitle: Making Good Judgments in a Wicked World
Subject Classification:  Business and Management, Decision Making, Philosophy  
BIC Classification: KJ, GPQ, KJG
BISAC Classification: BUS019000, BUS041000, PHI005000
Binding: Hardback, eBook
Planned publication date: Jul 2025
ISBN (Hardback): 978-1-83711-310-1
ISBN (eBook): 978-1-83711-311-8

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Description

The literature on practical wisdom and on judgment is vast but often lacks practical applicability. This book provides practical guidance on how managers or managers-to-be can improve their chances of making good decisions in the testing circumstances of managerial life.
We define Practical Wisdom as the capacity that enables good judgements to be made, and consider, properly, how to deal better with the world in which they are engaged. The world in which all of us are asked to make decisions is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA). This VUCA world is suffused with ‘wicked problems’, multitudinous, often divergent vested interests and clashing perspectives. It is a wicked world where there is no science of choice to assist us, nor any firm ground of truth on which to stand. The book aims to address the ‘how’ of good judgement, and the ‘how’ of becoming practically wise, to better deal with this VUCA world.
Practical wisdom is neither some magical superpower, nor another ‘intelligence’, nor an innate capability. One is not born wise, and age does not necessarily make one wise. In Pursuit of Practical Wisdom attempts to focus on the development of the conduct necessary to be a ‘good’ judge. It unpacks and operationalises the ancient conception of practical wisdom into a nexus of understandable and ‘attackable’ dispositions and capabilities that a good judge pursues.
The book contains exercises and activities to assist readers in developing dispositions and capabilities that constitute practical wisdom and underpin good judgement. A bibliography for each chapter is included.

Biography

Author(s):  Peter Lenney spent two decades in industry before becoming an academic. His business career took him from the laboratory bench of product development, via various R&D management appointments, through global marketing, to eventually become the Worldwide Business Director of International Paint Marine Coatings. Prior his recent retirement, he taught Practical Wisdom on the Lancaster University MBA, and, for several of those years, he was the MBA Programme Director.
Lisa Gunther is a Doctoral Researcher and Teaching Associate at Lancaster University Management School. Lisa worked alongside Peter Lenney for several years on the Lancaster MBA researching, developing and implementing pedagogies that target the development of the dispositions and capabilities underpinning good judgement.
Mark Dawson is Senior Teaching Fellow in Professional and Executive Management Learning at Lancaster University. He is the current Director of the Lancaster MBA, and Director of Digital Education.

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